Aion decided to leave the dungeon and see what would happen. In the worst-case scenario, he will just try to nuke the place inside out with all his magic. If the enemies keep coming, he will just face them outside.
That was his original plan until he noticed that the third enemy was climbing the walls a lot faster than the others. Around thirty percent faster… At the same time, the creature didn't get bigger. Now that Aion thought about it, when the explosions happened, the magma didn't spread around… something was off.
"It is the heat…" Aion said.
"The heat? What of it?" Seris furrowed her eyebrows.
"When they exploded, they increased the heat inside the dungeon, and that is increasing the power of those creatures," Aion explained. At the same time, he made the platform that they were using fly even faster. "This guy is pretty good… I don't know how much time he had to plan all of this, but the enemy came up with a plan of multiple steps, and each step would increase his chances of killing me. I should learn a thing or two from them."
"Again, this isn't the time to be impressed by the enemy…" Arlana said and then sighed. "Then again, I can understand where you are coming from."
Aion sped up once again since the enemy was gaining even more speed and because he also felt creeped out by the enemy's way of climbing. The creature couldn't move its arms that much, so it used its fingers to do most of the job, and that was more than a bit creepy.
In any case, Aion wondered how the monsters would leave the dungeon since the first corridor wasn't that large, and those creatures were massive… it was hard to imagine that the enemy would have made such a blunder. Aion confirmed that they didn't once they reached the top of the hole and saw that the entrance corridor of the dungeon had gotten larger and it had also gotten warmer as well.
"Again, this doesn't look good…" Aion said.
"I read that there was a tribe that lived two thousand years ago that they could become stronger just by living in a desert," Seris said once they began to cross the desert, and the monster quickly followed them. "No one understood the reason, but I guess it is similar to these things… they absorbed the heat to become stronger."
"Have you heard of any type of monster that could explode and increase the temperature of the environment as well?" Aion asked.
"I had… it was a dungeon of fire slimes," Arlana said. "They are supposed to appear two hundred years in the future. While they aren't strong, they managed to turn their dungeon into a living hell for those who killed a lot of them at once."
Those two sure were knowledgeable. Still, they couldn't help but frown since things didn't add up. Those characteristics belonged to humans and monsters. How could the magma golems inherit those traits… the answer was quite simple: the enemy managed to find a way to do so.
"The people of this world call it a mutation, but it is more like the bodies of some individuals adapt faster than others to certain stimuli…" Aion thought when he saw the entrance of the dungeon. "The enemy must have gathered some of the genes of the humans and monsters and, using the power of a dungeon core, created those creatures."
The area around the dungeon that was supposed to be covered in snow was completely free of it in a ten meters radius. If Aion kills those creatures there, he will just create an environment good for them to become stronger… perhaps strong enough to take down the Frozen Tyrant… most likely, that was their end goal in that period of time.
Despite that, Aion didn't hesitate in killing the monster… the explosion melted all the snow in a three hundred meters radius and made the temperature increase as well. Aion just watched all that while rubbing his chin thoughtfully.
Seris and Arlana tried to think of what they could do to help, but nothing came to mind. Seris was a bit used to that feeling of being terribly outmatched agaisnt a certain enemy… she felt the same way when they were on the labyrinth and that tower. Agaisnt a labyrinth that existed for hundreds of years and the Tower that had legendary warriors and monsters, it was normal to feel that way since she wasn't someone who lived for fighting. Still, she felt really annoyed at her own incompetence when Aion was able to overcome those challenges without losing his cool.
As for Arlana, that only made her feel like she had to choose the right person to help. She already knew that fighting against the giant calamities was useless since the entire world failed at that. Still, she felt bad since she wasn't helping the way she planned.
"... Seris, use your power on me," Aion declared after thinking for a short while.
"... All right," Seris said.
Seris wanted to ask what Aion was planning, but it wasn't time for that since the next enemy was already approaching. When the beast almost left the tunnel, Aion fired an ice spear that crushed its head, and when the beast exploded, Aion sent flying a wave of wind to seal the entrance of the dungeon. He clicked his tongue when he noticed that he didn't block all of the heat, but at least half of it didn't leave the dungeon.
"The heat still is leaving the dungeon, but I guess I can do this…" Aion thought while grabbing more mana orbs from his inventory.
The next monster was killed even faster than before since Aion got used to Seris' support magic, and this time, Aion soon summoned a wind wall that prevented the heat from leaving the dungeon, but it only blocked the heat and increased the speed of attacks coming from behind.
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